512. Building Trust Through Design: A Case Study with Greg Merrilees
Release Date: 07/30/2025
The New Rules of SEO, AEO & AI Search with Nathan Gotch
Marketing Speak®
A website was ranking #1 for every single keyword it cared about — and still lost 46% of its traffic. What happened? That's the kind of contradiction my guest Nathan Gotch deals with constantly. Nathan is an SEO entrepreneur, educator, and founder of Rankability, and just published his new book, AI SEO for Dummies (Wiley). He got his start in 2011 with tactics that would make any modern SEO cringe — until a flood of Google manual actions in 2015 became the turning point that pushed him toward sustainable, long-term strategy. In this episode, we get into: ➡️ Why traffic is becoming a...
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551. From Creator to Tastemaker with Benjamin Groff
Marketing Speak®
A song doesn't exist in physical form. So what actually is it? That's a question my guest this episode, music publisher Benjamin Groff, once got asked point-blank by a tech CEO — and it changed how he thinks about his entire industry. Benjamin built Kobalt's first U.S. office from the ground up, has signed artists like Ryan Tedder, Tiësto, and Kid Cudi, and now runs his own boutique publishing company, Brill Building, which just landed its first Billboard Hot 100 #1 with Beyoncé's "Break My Soul." In this episode, we get into: ➡️ How Benjamin finds emerging artists years before anyone...
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550. Your Company’s AI Brain with David Henzel
Marketing Speak®
"You're not going to be replaced by an AI; you're going to be replaced by someone using AI." But there's a layer above that too: what happens when AI is using AI? In this episode of Marketing Speak, I welcomed back serial entrepreneur David Henzel, of MaxCDN, LTVPlus, and now Context Engine, to talk about what it actually looks like to run an "AI-first" company from the inside. This isn't a theory. David's businesses have already cut ten-person QA teams down to two doing a better job, and he walks through exactly how. What we got into: ➡️ Why middle management may be the first real...
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549. Don’t Market More, Matter More with Scott Martin
Marketing Speak®
Sustainable growth doesn't come from chasing attention. It comes from becoming something people can't help but talk about. My guest on today's show is , founder of Groundswell Origins and author of Groundswell: The Unseen Wave of Business Growth. He has spent over twenty-five years building brands as an agency owner and strategist for national companies. He now hosts the Groundswell Origins podcast, where he digs into how businesses create growth that feeds itself. In our conversation, we explore what it takes to build a brand people remark on rather than one they simply scroll past. Scott...
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548. Navigating Change with Nick Musica
Marketing Speak®
The things that used to work just stopped working. If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. In this episode of Marketing Speak, I sat down with Nick Musica, a longtime SEO veteran turned executive coach, to talk about what happens when the habits and go-to moves that built your career suddenly lose their power in the AI era. What we got into: ➡️ Why the patterns that got you here will not get you where you want to go next ➡️ The real difference between giving yourself a job and building a company ➡️ Why dabbling in self-employment is a trap, and what to do instead ➡️ How...
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547. Podcasting in the AI Era with Rob Walch
Marketing Speak®
AI is reshaping podcasting faster than most creators can keep up with, and not all of it is good news. In this episode of Marketing Speak, I welcomed back Rob Walch, longtime podcasting veteran and now part of the team at Captivate, to talk through what AI actually means for creators, what still matters after fifteen years of change, and whether it is too late to start a show at all. What we got into: ➡️ The difference between AI tools that genuinely help you and the flood of AI slop dragging CPMs down for everyone ➡️ Why disclosure is now a legal and ethical must when you use AI...
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546. How to Be Incorruptible with Eric Ries
Marketing Speak®
Why do so many great companies get bought, then deliberately ruined in the name of profit? That mystery is what drove Eric Ries, author of the mega-bestseller The Lean Startup, to write his new book, Incorruptible. Eric has spent 15 years helping founders build companies, and he has watched the best of the industry alongside its dark side: beloved brands acquired and gutted, founders pushed out of companies that still bear their names. In this episode, he unpacks why it keeps happening, and what a rare set of enduring companies do differently. In this Marketing Speak episode, Eric breaks down:...
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545. LinkedIn Outreach That Doesn’t Suck with Jason Osborn
Marketing Speak®
Your LinkedIn inbox is full of spam. So is everyone else’s. And the old outreach playbook is the reason why. Jason Osborn has spent eight years helping companies generate leads on LinkedIn, and he noticed something: the more people leaned on automation and pitch-first messaging, the worse their results got. So he flipped the entire model. In this episode of Marketing Speak, Jason walks through the LinkedIn Reverse Podcast Method — a strategy that uses a podcast not for thought leadership, but to interview your ideal prospects, build genuine relationships, and convert conversations into...
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544. What AI Says About You When You're Not in the Room with Jessica Bowman
Marketing Speak®
AI is forming judgments about your brand right now. Most organizations have no system to manage it. Every earnings call you publish, every case study your vendor posts, every complaint about your return process, AI is reading all of it and building a case for or against recommending your brand to buyers. And the most damaging narratives are often ones brands unknowingly wrote themselves. In this episode of Marketing Speak, I sat down with Jessica Bowman, enterprise AI visibility strategist and founder of Coxwell & Gain, who has spent her career pioneering the operational side of AI...
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543. Resonance Over Reach with Jay Acunzo
Marketing Speak®
Most marketers are obsessed with reach. Jay Acunzo thinks that's the wrong game entirely. In this episode of Marketing Speak, I sat down with Jay Acunzo, keynote speaker, author of Break the Wheel, and host of How Stories Happen, who built a thriving speaking business from scratch, lost it all in five days when the pandemic hit, and came back with a sharper mission: helping experts stop being commodities and start being irreplaceable. Jay shares: Why resonance beats reach every time, and how to build a business where clients come because they want you, not just someone who looks...
info_outline🎯 Your website is never finished. It's your silent sales machine working 24/7.
Greg Merrilees just shared the blueprint that took Firefly Legal from outdated to industry-leading in our latest Marketing Speak deep dive.
Here's what most service businesses get wrong: They treat their website like a digital brochure instead of a conversion-focused sales tool. Greg's systematic approach fixes this with strategic questioning, authentic branding, and conversion funnels that actually work.
The proof? Organic traffic skyrocketing, keyword rankings climbing, and lead generation hitting all-time highs.
This Marketing Speak episode is packed with actionable insights for any service business ready to level up!
The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/512.